Dynamic Modeling, Control System Design and MIL–HIL Tests of an Unmanned Rotorcraft Using Novel Low-Cost Flight Control System

Abstract

Unmanned helicopters have gained great importance during recent years due to their special abilities such as hover flight, vertical take-off and landing, maneuverability and superior agility. The advances in electronic devices technologies lead to more powerful and lighter processors to be used in avionic systems which have attracted more attention to these UAVs. The first steps of utilizing an unmanned helicopter are dynamic modeling, control system design and performing model-in-the-loop (MIL) and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) tests which are presented in this paper. In this research, MIL and HIL tests of an unmanned helicopter are done using novel Linux-based flight control system built on Raspberry Pi board (different from normally used PC-104 and STM- or Arduino-based systems). Dynamic modeling, robust hierarchical control design, flight control system hardware and software architecture and MIL and HIL test results are reported here. By succeeding in these tests, it is shown that the proposed platform can be used in experimental flight tests in next steps.